Slender: The Ninja
by Harlequin de Rustre
Summary: Shikamaru walks into the forest and comes out...different


All copyrighted material utilized herein is not owned by me. The plot is my only creation here, and I make no profit off any part of my efforts.

~.~.

In the land of Hi, there lay a village, hidden within a vast forest. The sea of foliage and wood was thick with shadows, where untold secrets could hide.

Of this great forest, only two such places truly harbored untold things. It was as if all that was forgotten in the world of man found purchase so close to the witness of mortal eyes.

One was a place of primordial paradise, far removed from the design of man. It had long soaked in the blood of beasts, fertilizing the ground with the life-energy of thousands of great monsters.

Its counterpart housed nothing so simple. It was a place of shadows within shadows. Solemn, silent, and secluded. This forest was not a place of cyclical death and blood. Rather…it was a mere place of stillness. Populated by fragile creatures with guileless black eyes, it was said no other place in the world was as calm or as peaceful as there.

However, in all of the great forest in the land of Hi, only the latter was host to evil. Not for the gentle herds of black-eyed creatures, nor their caretakers, but for one single thing.

For untold generations it lay in a dark tomb, although it was not dead. It had no name. It had no soul. It had no face. And yet it lived- or some facsimile thereof.

The thing was without motive or desire. It patiently resided in its secret home, never wanting for anything- not food, nor water, nor even the light of the sun or the cool breeze of autumn on its face.

The men of the world, young as the race was, had never paid witness to it. The beasts of the world had long forgotten it, as simple as their fleeting memory was. The earth of the world had forgotten the tread of the thing, even within its own home, so long had it laid, quiet and unmoving.

But, for all that the world had forgotten of the thing, one single truth prevailed, bred into the very bones of every creature and down to the bedrock of the earth:

It was evil.

.~.~

A boy ran across the land that was his family's sole property, happy to be free to bound across the field. Laughing and smiling, the boy entered the forest before him without pause, as this, too, was the property of his family. It was deemed the safest of any place for him- sometimes jokingly said to be safer than the family's own house.

The boy, with his deep black hair and blacker eyes, found himself very quickly within the darkest, oldest parts of the forest without fail. Breathing in the still, moist air, he tasted the natural flavor of wet earth and moss, free from the usual tang of decay or death found in other forests. He breathed out, smiling, standing in the still world of his family's forest, before taking off again, aimlessly running through the trees and past one or two of his family's deer.

Every day he explored his father's seemingly endless domain, after finishing school and whatever studies he had, tirelessly cavorting through the fields and forests, whooping it up in the otherwise silent place.

Today, however, would be quickly very different.

Without warning the boy tripped, sprawling forward over soft, wet soil. Groaning and turning over, the boy glanced around for whatever he'd caught his foot on. Spying a rather sizeable stone lying conspicuously near his ankle, he scowled at it. Marring its otherwise smooth, plain surface was etched an odd mark, a circle with a rude cross through it. With a particularly sulky expression on his face, the black-eyed boy stooped over it, picking up the surprisingly light rock with the intent on pitching it in some sort of boyish form of revenge against the unfeeling lump of rock.

However, as he did so, the earth around it gave way, falling to create a wide hole at the base of a tree near the boy. Perturbed, the boy peered into the blackness between the roots of the huge, ancient tree, squinting to make out something in the amazingly huge open space. It was then that the air displaced by the soil wafted out from the hole, filling the boy's nostrils with its scent.

A chill ran down the brunet child's neck, and he backed away, stumbling to fall on his rear, before running away, eager to get away from this strange place.

.~.~

"Shika! Shikaaaaa! Where are you Shi- There you are!"

Bursting from the edge of the forest came the boy, pale as a ghost and sweating profusely.

"Mom!" he cried, stumbling into his parent's arms.

"Where have you been, boy," the woman exclaimed, hugging her son tight, "I've been worried sick about you."

"I…I was in the forest, like always, Mom."

"Then how do you explain disappearing without a word up until almost midnight? Your father'd been searching in there for hours!"

The boy started, looking up at the sky, the moon hanging high in the black sky. It had been well before sundown when he'd left, he was sure of that…

"Never do that again! We were sure we'd lost you forever!"

"Um…yes, Mom."

"Look at you: all dirty and sweaty. I hope you'd at least had fun…"

"Y-yeah…"

"What's that you got there? Found something interesting?"

The boy looked down at his hands, which were firmly gripping the stone he'd found in the forest. A familiar chill ran down his spine.

.~.~

"How come you've got a rock on your shelf, dad?"

Shikaku looked up from his book, engrossed in one of his favorite histories. Peering over his looking glasses with a cocked eyebrow, the man hummed.

"Just something I picked up messing around in the our forest. There's no particularly fancy reason behind it being there."

"Then why you've got this thing here? Haven't you got enough junk cluttering up your office?"

"If it'll make you feel any better, Shikamaru, you can go pitch it out back. It's not like there aren't hundreds like it out there for some fool to trip over."

Leaning forward, closing his book to give his son a meaningful look, the man continued, saying "On that note, watch your step out there; I don't want you getting lost like I did all the time back when I was your age."

"Right, yeah, whatever, Dad."

The boy was already out the door as he said that, the stone tucked firmly under his arm.

"Sheesh," the man said, scratching the back of his head, "fussy kid…"

His wife soon entered the way his son left, beginning with "Dear, we need to talk about the things that still have to get done around-"

Shikaku leaned back in lackadaisical response, palming his face and subsequently coming his fingers through his deep black hair.

"Oh, God, here we go again…"

.~.~

Shikamaru picked his way through the forest, nothing in particular on his mind. He sat down to think here and there, standing back up and continuing on not long after he stopped.

It was not like him to be so restless, but he didn't seem to feel like it right then. It was a pretty weird feeling, one that didn't feel all that wrong to him, but with less than casual introspection seemed out of place with, well, him.

He liked lying out in the open, as high up as possible, where he could just look up at the open sky and the clouds, never wanting for anything. He was not one for trudging through this dark as hell forest where he couldn't make out the clouds or even the sky for all the damn trees and their leaves.

Shikamaru was also not one for trucking around with a stupid rock, either, but that wasn't stopping him, was it? He could have left it behind a number of times, but, no, he kept on absentmindedly tucking it under his arm and wandering further into the forest.

It finally got to the point where the boy had had enough of this silliness, saying "Alright, that's far enough" and dropping his load.

The stone fell with a wooden thump on the thick root of some tree, rolling over to drop out of sight. Shikamaru turned away, ready to head home. Then he heard a sharp crack behind him, like a stone hitting concrete.

…or a kunai hitting Mom's precious tile floor.

He turned right back around, making his way over to the source of the sound in the otherwise silent forest. What he found was…odd.

Right smack in the middle of nowhere was a dark hole. It was reasonable to deduce that the recently abandoned rock had fallen into the hole.

That didn't explain the odd sound it'd made when it landed. As far as he knew, holes didn't just open up in the ground, nor did trees get them, especially on even ground like where this one was. Nor did trees normally grow over things like bedrock.

So, in all likelihood, this was some sort of structure that was made after the tree was planted, possibly something his family had built and forgot about long ago. Because a tree growing on top of something like this was completely natural.

With this in mind, Shikamaru carefully lowered himself into the hole in the pursuit of sating his curiosity.

.~.~

Shikamaru finally came home sometime right about sunset, looking a little haggard. His mother had fretted over him for a needlessly long moment before deeming him ready to leave her sight again. Watching her son wordlessly disappear off to his room, the woman still felt ill at ease. Something was off about little Shika today...

His father made an offhanded comment about clucking hens and soon all thoughts of wrongness or their son was soon forgotten as the parents got into another of their regular rows.

.~.~

Shikaku was up pretty late, even for him, poring over one of his history books. He was nursing a couple mild bruises on his ribs where his darling soulmate had accusingly jabbed him. Violence and loudness was usually how she made herself heard when it came to him, something he'd long since gotten used to, countering and aggravating her tactics with his passive aggressive demeanor and softspoken sarcasm.

He always let her win, but she made every conflict a struggle no matter the circumstances. God help his kid when he grew up, because marriage was almost as much a curse as it was a wonderful blessing.

It was at some point during his studies that the bulb to his reading lamp flickered out and died, leaving Shikaku to curse and ramble about in the dark as he got up to fetch a replacement from the pantry across the house.

Much stumbling later, he'd found what he was looking for. As he was making his way back, he noticed that the back door was newly ajar.

The Nara patriarch went to close it, but caught himself. Out in the field leading to the forest, his son was silently trudging to the tree line. There was a tickling notion in the back of the man's mind that Shikamaru was out there for some designated purpose, but he couldn't for the life of him figure what errand it could possibly be at this ungodly hour of night.

So the man shrugged it off, ambling back to his study with the intent of reimmersing himself in his arcane texts.

.~.~

On the day of the Graduation Exam, Shikamaru Nara was a different person. While still withdrawn and implacable to the whims of others, gone was the sarcastic and often abrasive character he'd been previously known for. In place of that were an aloof watchful nature and a mild, dry sense of humor nobody in class could quite understand.

He'd changed his image, too- gone was his usual slacker-ish getup, ditching his jacket in favor of a slim zipper hoodie, the mesh undershirt for a simple white tee, and the token sandals for cheapish combat boots. He wore his hair down, combing it back behind his ears. About the only part of his original image that was kept were the pants- and those got treated different, tucked into his boots and the thighs taped down tight.

His classmates didn't know quite how to take this change, as it seemed to happen overnight, but they came to accept this new Shikamaru slowly enough. The boy's parents were at a loss, even his normally laidback father inquiring if everything was alright, if things were fine at the Academy and so on. They left him alone after a point, chalking it up to the turbulent nature of puberty and inquiring no further about it.

The only person that still worried was Shikamaru's friend, Chouji, who felt that something was seriously amiss about his childhood buddy. He'd just suddenly showed up like this totally new person, even abandoning his normal pastime of cloudwatching. However, his fears were assuaged after the Nara heir finally cracked his usual smile, his black eyes filled with that familiar casual mirth he was known for.

When the Academy let out that afternoon, the boy had himself a headband, which he toyed with casually as he watched the other students and their families bustle about. He noted Naruto across from the brunet's place against the wall of the Academy building, who seemed to be brooding in silence. Given the boy's usual nature…this was pretty freakish.

But whatever. It wasn't his business.

.~.~

On a random whim, Shikamaru found himself strolling through a forest not on his family's land, but in the general outskirts of the village. It was a nice change of pace.

Not as still or as dark as home the unfamiliar canopy was made alive with the breath of the evening air, inciting the endless branches to rustle in a soft, continuous cacophony. Small critters darted hither and thither in the underbrush and just overhead, unsettled by something or other.

The boy wove between the trunks with a preternatural grace, not much caring for anything in particular so much as simply being here amongst the many trees.

It was then he noticed a man amidst the branches, a man he'd recognized. Mizuki-sensei…

Odd, him being out where he was at night. Quite interesting, really.

.~.~

"Sensei."

Focused on making it to the "rendezvous" with the idiot demon kid, Mizuki near just about fell out of the tree he'd landed on. He looked for the source of the address, finding quickly the boy perched on the exact same branch as he.

"Ah, um, Nara-kohai. Out for the stroll…are we?"

The boy shrugged noncommittally. "Of a sort."

"Well…okay…"

Damn, he didn't have time for this. As far as he knew, that little bugger and the scroll were just that much closer to being found by somebody else.

"Uh…goodby-"

Mizuki began to leap off toward his goal before getting a vicious smack to the head, sending him downward. He quickly reoriented himself, landing firmly on his feet, whipping his head up to glare at the now vanished Nara.

"Sensei."

Startled, the chunin spun to face the Nara boy, who stood with his arms hanging at his sides, his black eyes fixed on Mizuki's own. The look in them was…unsettling.

"What the hell, Nara?! This isn't time for a sparring session!"

As if not even listening, Shikamaru sighs, saying "Sensei's out and about in the forest for no explicit reason."

The boy cocks his head just slightly to the side. "Interesting."

Mizuki scoffed, beginning to unload of a shuriken to quickly deal with the snooping kid. He kept eye contact with the boy, feeling a chill roll down his spine.

It was then the Nara started forward, uncaring that the man was reaching for a weapon. Mizuki's eyes widened as the boy got closer.

.~.~

The mystery was solved quickly that night, Naruto having been found to be a bit too eager to graduate to see the logic in waiting for the next exam, thusly being a perfect dupe in some strange scheme that apparently an Academy chunin had cooked up.

If not for the proximity of the man to Naruto's location, and the word of another instructor, an Iruka Umino, things might have been resolved a little differently. However, knowing Naruto, the Hokage would've likely accepted it on just the boy's word.

Sneaky and mischievous the boy might have been, but a thief or a liar were simply not him, especially an ambitious one like that. The kid was all flash, no bang, if that made any sense.

What was strange, though, was the state of the alleged mastermind when he was found. Head to toe, he was covered with bruises of various sizes, some near to the point of contusion, primarily around his face and neck. The man was a gibbering wreck, barely knowing his own name even after being eased down from his state of hysteria.

Be that as it may, the man was an easy traitor to the village, and thus had to be incarcerated. Thus, he was soon carted off to the Correctional Facility, as conveniently insane as he was.

.~.~

Shikaku found his son rather differently when he woke up the following morning. The boy seemed positively chipper, compared to his normally sober state of being. When asked about it, the Nara heir merely stated that he was fine and that he just felt like being happy for once.

Odd as the answer was, the man left it alone, knowing better than to pry into his boy's personal life, especially seeing as he was coming into a new stage in his life now.

Boys will be boys, after all.

~.~.

A _very_ strange idea that came upon me whilst listening to a certain song.

I won't spell out what happened to change our surly hero- it wouldn't be fair, after all.

I'm sure somebody will guess, though.

This is just a side project to keep me writing. I have a few, but the main even is Naruto: The Animal, which I ask you to support. I have no schedule for writing this or any other piece. Inspiration will come and go, as this is just supposed to stimulate my enthusiasm, amongst other things.

So please review, go look at my other stuff, and most especially peruse my favorites - the authors and their work deserve your attention after all that time and effort spent.


End file.
